


Welcome to the Family Jewels

by kikitheslayer



Series: Lilly lived/Veronica died AU [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5094611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikitheslayer/pseuds/kikitheslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Three days in he forgot that this was not his original state of being, that anger is an emotion and not a personality trait.</em><br/> </p><p>(Or: Logan's place in the Lilly lived/Veronica died AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to the Family Jewels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magnifly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnifly/gifts), [Amasirol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amasirol/gifts).



> Do you guys remember that one tumblr post that goes, 
> 
> "My girlfriend's gone so I'm cutting the sleeves off all my shirts."  
> "Why?"  
> "She's 85% of my impulse control." 
> 
> Yeah, Veronica is Logan's that.
> 
>  
> 
> Some parts may not make sense without reading the first one.
> 
>    
> Title from "The Family Jewels" by Marina and the Diamonds.

There is a perverse kind of pride in having such a fucked up life. It feels special, that no one else has been through what you have been through. It’s egotism, in knowing that no matter what someone complains about, you can one-up them without even trying. Most of all, it’s the knowledge that you made it through by yourself, that you never needed anybody. 

Granted, “made it through” is a relative phrase, and never asking for help is the not the same as not needing anybody.

Even if that person isn’t around.

\--

He was awoken by a crash from the kitchen. He got up, stepping lightly, cautious. An Aaron Echolls who had broken something was an angry Aaron Echolls and an angry Aaron Echolls was one of the top three most terrifying sights in SoCal.

He peered into the kitchen. Lynn was on her knees, picking scattered shards of glass off the tile and swearing in a low voice.

“Mom?” he asked, stepping around the corner.

She looked over her shoulder, a perfect, well-practiced smile on her lips. “Logan, honey,” she said, her voice soft and sweet, “go back to bed. I just dropped something.”

He began helping her clean up. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You should be asleep. Where’s Dad?”

“I was just getting some water, Logan, it’s nothing. And your father is in bed, like he should be.”

“He’s a light sleeper,” he countered, his voice trailing off as he took in the three bottles of pills on the countertop. The phone that was usually mounted on the wall was dangling by its cord. “Who called?”

Lynn pursed her lips. She tossed the last of the glass and stood. Logan followed suit. “Go back to bed, Logan. It can wait until tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “Mom,” he demanded.

She opened one of the bottles and dry swallowed two little white pills. When she turned back to look at him, any trace of a smile had disappeared. She wasn’t crying yet, either. She looked tired and half-dead. “Aaron’s in jail,” she said.

Logan leaned against the wall. “What’d he do this time?” He smiled without humor. “DUI? Assault? Tell me this won’t conflict with the shooting of ‘Over the Hill: Ironic Roman Numeral’.”

Lynn hands were shaking, but her face didn’t shift. “Murder,” she said dryly.

Logan dropped his hand to his sides, his smile disappearing. “Who?” he asked.

“ _Logan_ ,” Lynn stressed, “go to bed _now_. We can go see the bastard tomorrow.”

It was half a peace offering -- an old joke, calling Aaron a bastard when he wasn’t around. Logan didn’t take it. “Who’d he kill?”

“Allegedly kill.”

Logan took a step forward. “Who’d he kill?”

Lynn’s hand shot out to grasp the edge of the counter. “Veronica Mars,” she said, turning away quickly.

He felt like puking by the first syllable. The color drained from his face. “How?” he asked, his voice too shaky for his liking.

“You think I asked for details?” cried Lynn, turning around, talking fast. “They said, ‘Hello, Lynn Echolls, your husband is in custody and suspected of murdering Veronica Mars.’ And I was like, ‘That bastard!’ and I hung up the phone! We’ll go first thing tomorrow, I promise, but just--” She stopped. She sunk against the counter, her breath pulled out in ragged sobs.

Logan registered somewhere in the back of his mind that he should comfort her. He didn’t. He walked in a haze to where he kept his car keys and put on some clothes. He was pretty sure it was jeans and a shirt, but he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to tell if they were even the right way around.

He was still lucid enough to drive through the relatively empty roads. He circled Neptune a few times, and the sun was poking over the horizon by the time he actually stopped at the police station.

He passed Lilly on his way in, passed out on a bench near the front. Someone has laid a panic blanket over her. She was a mess, caked with dirt, blood, and smeared make up. He guessed her first reaction to the news wasn’t shock. It would have been destructive, angry. He smoothed back her hair and walked to the front desk.

\--

The destruction and anger came later. He snapped out of the haze or whatever it was, and there was enough fire in his veins to last for weeks. (And the fire did. Three days in he forgot that this was not his original state of being, that anger is an emotion and not a personality trait.)

He visited his dad and screamed into the plastic phone until his voice was hoarse. Aaron’s face crumbled behind the glass and it really was not enough. He smashed every framed movie poster and every award he could find.

He left 14 messages on Lilly’s machine. His voice grew louder in each one. She never responded. He pretended she listened anyway.

His lawyer advised him to clean up his act, so he shredded the paperwork. He shredded a lot of stuff after that.

\--

“I can’t believe her, you know?” he said. His breath reeked of alcohol, but he spoke directly into Duncan’s face.

Duncan nodded stiffly.

It had only been a month and a half but it felt like longer. So much so that when Duncan showed up on Logan’s doorstep with two cases of cheap beer and clapped him loosely on the shoulder, it took Logan a minute to remember that they were supposed to be best friends.

Logan let him in anyway. They hung out in the living room and played X-Box until Logan smashed his controller and started downing the drinks for real.

“It’s just-- so like her,” he continued, his words slurring. He could never hold his alcohol as well as he pretended. Duncan was just as shit-faced as him, though, so he felt a little better. “She always had to make everything about herself.” He let out a laugh that turned into a sob and went on, “couldn’t just let anything be. Had to be all… dramatic. Never gave a shit what other people wanted.”

He took another swig and tried to drown the part of him that thought his mother wasn’t really gone. Car on a bridge? So not her style. He wondered vaguely who he should talk to. The first thing that popped to mind was “therapist”, and second was “bartender”, the third was “anyone who’ll listen”. He picked option four, and never mentioned it out loud.

\--

Logan really, really hated Trina.

\--

Logan didn’t watch tv anymore. Flipping through the channels was so much less entertaining when half the news stories were about your dead friend, your ex-friend, and the footage they play 24/7 of your ex screwing your father.

He got asked to testify and got called a “hostile witness”. He wasn’t supposed to yell like that in court, apparently, even if it was aimed at the man he was condemning.

\--

He passed Lilly a lot, whether at school or in court. She was doing better than ever, it seemed. It was unfair. He wanted to watch that smile disappear for good, watch her say sorry, watch her choke on the unfamiliar words. He also kind of wanted to kiss her again. It was comforting in a way. His life was hell in a lot of new and exciting ways, so it was good to know the old ones hadn’t just disappeared.

One day she stood up in the cafeteria and gave a 90 second speech about the 09ers’ suckage. She didn’t mention his name once. He’s not sure if it’s pity, kindness, or if she just never payed enough attention to him to actually have something to say.

\--

He’d hand it to her, the fountain was a nice touch. He wasn’t sure what Veronica would have thought, but it wasn’t really for her. It was for every asshole who wanted to pretend they’d never gone to school together. It was nice to see Lilly understood that.

He didn’t exactly intend to start crying that day he went to look at it after school hours, but then, he never intended to start crying, ever.

Lilly stood next to him. He kind of wanted to scream at her to leave him alone, but he didn’t. After a few minutes she rested her hand on his shoulder. “Sorry,” she said. Her voice was small. It tasted nothing like the satisfaction he’d been hoping for.

\--

“Dude,” said Dick, slapping a paper on Logan’s kitchen table, “the hell is this?”

Logan peered at it. There was a blurry paparazzi picture of him on the cover. The headline read, ‘Logan Echolls: The Inside Scoop’.

Dick opened his fridge and helped himself to a take out container. “What’s with all the, like, soft, sensitive pieces on you? I thought you were supposed to be tearing up Neptune. You going soft, bro?”

Logan turned away from the paper. He had expected news stories about himself in the wake of the tragedy, but not news stories like this. He’d never had reporters try and be understanding before, but apparently he had become something of a tragic figure. He could spit in a reporter’s face one day and still find an account of a fabricated interview the next.

He was trying to get back onto the media’s bad side. It was something to entertain him, more than anything. But no one actually seemed to care about his misdeeds except Lilly, who had threatened him multiple times to get his life on track. Despite actual, physical proof that she could hide a body, he wasn’t that scared.

He realized suddenly he hadn’t said anything for about a minute. “Want to go get hammered?”

Dick shrugged and set down the food. “Whatever’ll get you out of the house, man.”

\--

It was years later -- graduation day, actually -- that Logan had a dream. He woke up, walked downstairs, and his mom was in the kitchen. Breakfast had just been delivered. At school, he greeted the old gang: A normal Duncan, a Lilly who didn’t have it all so damn on track, and all the 09ers whose names he barely knew he remembered. He kissed Veronica. And then it was over. It was a weird dream.

\--

Logan didn’t have plans. He was over the hill at eighteen. He’d spent the last two years getting Ds and Fs and a criminal record. He couldn’t remember if he had ever been passionate about anything in his life.

He glanced briefly at the brochure for Hearst college before moving on. Maybe he’d join the military. Maybe he’d move to Idaho and take up a simple existence. Maybe he’d finally do what the world seemed to have been telling him to do, let the fire in his veins overtake him and finally, finally burn.


End file.
